Hi all, This has been a side topic in several email threads recently. Currently we have an ambiguity. We have a tradition in the dev community that any committer can create a branch, and propose release candidates from it. Yet the Hadoop bylaws say that releases have to be planned in advance, the plan needs to be voted on, and presumably can be denied.
Apache policies (primarily here <http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html> and here <http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html>, with non-normative commentary here<http://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice>) are very clear on how Releases have to be approved, and our bylaws are consistent with those policies. But Apache policies don't say anything I've found about Release Plans, nor about voting on Release Plans. I propose the following change, to remove Release Plan votes, and give a simple definition of Release Manager role. I'm opening discussion with this proposal, and will put it to a vote if we seem to be getting consensus. Here's the changes I suggest in the Bylaws<http://hadoop.apache.org/bylaws.html> document: === 1. In the "Decision Making" : "Actions" section of the Bylaws, the following text is removed: ** Release Plan* Defines the timetable and actions for a release. The plan also nominates a Release Manager. Lazy majority of active committers 2. In the "Roles and Responsibilities" section of the Bylaws, an additional role is defined: ** Release Manager* A Release Manager (RM) is a committer who volunteers to produce a Release Candidate according to HowToRelease<https://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/HowToRelease>. The RM shall publish a Release Plan on the *common-dev@* list stating the branch from which they intend to make a Release Candidate, at least one week before they do so. The RM is responsible for building consensus around the content of the Release Candidate, in order to achieve a successful Product Release vote. === Please share your views. Best regards, --Matt (long-time release manager)
